The Effects of Wikia Nirvana on This Site
Wikia has built it's API on top of the MediaWiki platform, which relies heavily on special features such as custom classes. Most extensions you will find by Wikia will not be easily embedded on your wiki, because throughout the installation of the main Wikia version of the MediaWiki code is a complex system called Nirvana, Wikia's framework. It is made to work by EasyTemplate, an architecture that makes code for developers easier and less slopier to understand. If you have seen examples, Wikia can fit a command into 1 line, while MediaWiki takes up three. Nirvana first started before Monaco even existed. The Wikia Quartz skin may have been the first to utilize it. Quartz was a great skin, although I wasn't here for it. Wikia has come out with Nirvana 2.0, making code easier to use and simpler to run if you know the platform and how to use it. The API give complete access to the classes used for most Wikia sites. This framework is also how Wikia got got very large fast. Some users didn't believe that Wikia was running MediaWiki, but it can be proved by looking into the repository. Oasis Trying to install any Wikian skin to MediaWiki can be hard, and while installing it may cause a lot of problems. Problems that may burn your site up, use up too much disk space for your hosting account, and other things. We tried installing Oasis, and we had no luck, because it was partially badly coded. By that, we mean that Wikia doesn't come out with literal extensions for MediaWiki. Instead, they make new features that are embedded acroos the whole installation of MediaWiki. They don't even use arrays anymore, because of the EasyTemplate thing. If you look at the main category for Wikia's extensions on MediaWiki, you'll see that there are notes and many of them say that Wikia's features are WAY too skin-specific. We found a relationship with Oasis, too. There is a set of extensions that are connected only to the Oasis skin. Many of the newer features, most likely Chat and Message Wall, are mostly only able to run on the Oasis skin. Wikia bases their extensions on skin features. If one wrong core feature was taken out of Oasis, the whole extension line could break, causing Wikia to have to close it's doors for a while. This is exactly the problem. they don't connect their stuff with the MediaWiki software. A;; they do is run stuff on top of it. Extensions are usually supposed to be run on a base MediaWiki installation. Most likely, Wikia's having to make profits got way too much in the way of their fact that they need to put extensions in the right line by utilizing the full power of MediaWiki. they don't have to release the extensions. All they have to do is keep the names of the extensions to themselves, the source code to themselves, and everyone's happy. Most companies that say they're open companies aren't Wikia used to be run on what the users wanted. But since the two founders left, the staff hasn't been held down exactly the right way. Only by this is why they aren't exactly pleasing the users. Me? I'm fine with it. Just other users aren't. I'm happy to stay here at Wikia. I can adapt. But Wikia lost enough of it's stuff while changing skins. This is because once users are accustomed to the life of one skin, it makes it hard for them to move away to another skin.